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17 août 2013

MULTRA (Multilateral Agreement on the Mutual Recognition of Accreditation) goes global

http://www.ecaconsortium.net/admin/files/assets/subsites/1/news/images/foto_1372691964_thumb.jpgOn 14 December 2010 ECA members launched the Multilateral Agreement on the Mutual Recognition of Accreditation Results regarding Joint Programmes (MULTRA). The purpose of the MULTRA is to simplify the accreditation and recognition of joint programmes and degrees awarded and to provide an efficient way to expand mutual recognition to more countries.
For the first time, MULTRA has been signed by a non-European Agency: Consejo Nacional de Acreditación (CNA), Republic of Colombia. In the same month MULTRA was also signed by a German accreditation agency: Agentur für Qualitätssicherung durch Akkreditierung von Studiengängen e.V. (AQAS). 
We are happy to note that our efforts to simplify the accreditation of joint programmes and to provide an efficient way to implement mutual recognition is confirmed by these new signatories to MULTRA.  ECA is determined to pursue its efforts in this direction in the upcoming years and thus to continue providing truly global solutions to global needs.
The agreement was signed on behalf of CNA by Patricia Martínes Barrios, Deputy Minister of Higher Education of the Republic of Colombia on 21 June 2013 at the occasion of JOQAR Dissemination Conference "Quality Assurance and Recognition of Joint Programmes" hosted by ANECA in Madrid.

17 août 2013

Bluestocking Week

http://www.nteu.org.au//var/files/thumbs/a780532dd116f8da145bac8c4c7961bc_7e15d65bab4d96496b9a901000f6d33f_w200_h283_.jpgHolding the Line is the theme of the NTEU’s Bluestocking Week 2013 to be celebrated this year between 12 -16 August.
2013 has been a tumultuous period for gender politics. This makes this year’s Bluestocking Week an even more critical moment for women working in higher education. The theme is ‘Holding the Line’ and the necessity of resistance to sexism in public life has perhaps never been so pronounced.
Bluestocking Week is named for the first generations of university women of the 19th century who grabbed the term, and even as it was used by their opponents as a derogatory dismissal of their achievements and proudly wore it as a badge of serious scholarship. The term originates from the latter part of the 18th century as women started organising literary societies in their homes and began campaigning for women’s access to university and more generally for women’s rights to equality in work, under the law and access into the parliaments. Many of the middle and upper class leaders of the suffragist and suffragette movements started out in or were influenced by these literary societies, as did some of the male supporters of women’s rights. Indeed the term blue stocking is often attributed to a male member of the circle who arrived at meetings in his everyday worsted wool blue stockings rather than white silk ones usually worn by men when meeting with men. This was taken up as distinguishing the women’s initiative.*
See www.nteu.org.au/bluestockingweek and the 2012 edition of Agenda, the NTEU’s annual women’s magazine (link) for details of the origins and histories of the Bluestockings.
We focused last year upon celebrating the success of women in higher education drawing upon the history of women’s sometimes slow, but determined struggle for participation in universities as students and staff, as well as upon challenging gendered discrimination in the construction and transmission of knowledge. Read more...

17 août 2013

The UniCasual Infographic: unscrambling the facts and stats around precarious university employment

http://www.nteu.org.au//var/files/thumbs/a780532dd116f8da145bac8c4c7961bc_default_w80_.jpgBy Paul Clifton (Uni Casual). There’s nothing casual about casual employment. The working conditions experienced by tens of thousands of casual academics in Australia’s public and private universities demonstrate that casualisation, as an employment strategy, is both widespread and systemic.
These images form part of a double spread infographic in the upcoming issue of Connect, the NTEU and CAPA magazine for casual academics. Facts and figures from the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) and the Work and Careers in Australian Universities Survey (WCAU) point out how bad casualisation has become. Read more...

17 août 2013

Seeing red over the gender pay gap during Bluestocking Week 12-16 August

http://www.nteu.org.au//var/files/thumbs/a780532dd116f8da145bac8c4c7961bc_default_w80_.jpgBy Jeannie Rea. University women across Australia are donning blue stockings and putting their best foot (and leg) forward for Bluestocking Week, 12-16 August.
NTEU National President, Jeannie Rea, who launched Bluestocking Week in Melbourne today, said that the theme this year was ‘holding the line’.
“2013 has been a tumultuous period for gender politics. This makes this year’s Bluestocking Week an even more critical moment for women working in higher education. The necessity to resist to sexism in public life has perhaps never been so pronounced,” she said.
“Underpinning this is the persistent gender pay gap. Men out-earn women in every occupational group in Australia, even in those jobs dominated by women. Gender inequity is still a major issue in university employment, even while more women than men study and work at universities.”
Today’s launch had women literally ‘holding the line’ – a clothes line with large cardboard blue stockings displaying facts about women’s pay inequity. Read more...

17 août 2013

Reining in the higher education regulator

http://www.nteu.org.au//var/files/thumbs/a780532dd116f8da145bac8c4c7961bc_default_w80_.jpgBy Jeannie Rea. The Review of Higher Education released today by Minister for Higher Education, Senator Kim Carr, will be welcomed members of the National Tertiary Education Union because it explicitly recognises the distinction between regulation and quality assurance, National President Jeannie Rea said today.
“The NTEU strongly agrees with the finding of the review that the legislation which governs the operation of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is not operating in a manner intended by the Government or the sector,” Rea said.
“The NTEU shares the concern of the authors Professors Kong Lee Dow and Valarie Braithwaite that the operation of TEQSA does not reflect the regulatory principles of risk, proportionality and necessity as outlined in the legislation, but rather constitutes a data collection and audit model where all institutions are treated as equal regardless of their size, history or reputation. Read more...

17 août 2013

University students go hungry while amassing large debts

http://www.nteu.org.au//var/files/thumbs/a780532dd116f8da145bac8c4c7961bc_default_w80_.jpgBy Jeannie Rea. The release yesterday of Universities Australia’s report, University student finances in 2012, clearly shows that students need much more support while they are studying at university, Jeannie Rea National President of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) said today.
“It’s a national disgrace that almost one in five university students reports going without food and ends up graduating with an average debt of almost $38,000,” Rea said.
“While the report acknowledges that the changes introduced by the Labor government resulted in student income support being better targeted, it is unacceptable that 17% of students regularly go without food and other necessities. A university degree should be built on more than two-minute noodles.
“Eighty percent of full-time university students have a job to support themselves and they work, on average, 16 hours a week. Around a quarter of those with jobs work more than 20 hours a week so altogether it’s no surprise that over half of all students indicated that work was interfering with their studies.
“Over many years working in a university, I have seen too many students stop attending classes and submitting assignments because they need to take on more hours of paid work. Their performances suffer and, too often, they end up abandoning their courses but still have to pay their accumulated HECs debt.”
Australian students pay amongst the highest tuition fees to attend a public university in the world. These fees which are repaid through the income contingent HECS scheme range between $18,000 and $60,000, Rea said. Read more...

17 août 2013

Recommendation on the Use of Qualifications Frameworks in the Recognition of Foreign Qualifications

http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/highereducation/Recognition/DGIIEDUHE(2012)14%20Rev09%20FINAL%20-%20LRC%20Supplementary%20Text%20on%20the%20Use%20of%20QFs%20ENGLISH-2.jpgAPPENDIX
I. Definitions
1. General Terms:
a. The general terms used throughout the present Recommendation are the same as those understood in the Lisbon Recognition Convention and referenced in the definition of terms (Section I) of the Convention.
2. Terminology specific to the present Recommendation:
a. “National Qualifications Framework(s) (NQFs)” refers to qualifications frameworks developed at the national or sub-national level and specific to a country’s structure of education and training;
b. “Overarching frameworks” refers to regional frameworks to which NQFs are related (for example the QF-EHEA and EQF-LLL);
c. “Qualifications frameworks” refers in general terms to both NQFs and overarching frameworks.
II. Scope and General Considerations
1. The Recommendation focuses on the use of qualifications frameworks as important information and transparency tools in the recognition of higher education qualifications and qualifications giving access to higher education.
2. The Recommendation takes account of the fact that, from a lifelong learning perspective, qualifications frameworks can also facilitate the recognition of prior learning, since qualifications frameworks describe qualifications in terms of learning outcomes independently from learning paths. It also takes account of the fact that qualifications frameworks can be used to facilitate access to the labour market.
3. The Recommendation demonstrates ways in which qualifications frameworks may be helpful in establishing similarities between foreign qualifications and relevant qualifications within the education system in which recognition is sought, and whether or not there are substantial differences between qualifications.
4. The fact that not all countries, or indeed all signatories to the Lisbon Recognition Convention, have national qualifications frameworks should not be an impediment to recognizing qualifications from such countries. Likewise many older qualifications may not be placed in a qualifications framework even if the country in question has now developed one.
5. National Qualifications Frameworks facilitate recognition especially when they have been linked in a transparent and comparative way – through self-certification and referencing – to the overarching frameworks, such as QF-EHEA and EQF-LLL.
6. While the existence of a NQF alone does not lead to “automatic recognition”, the positioning of qualifications within the NQF of the awarding country and their relation to one or more overarching frameworks gives important information to facilitate the recognition processes.
III. Recommendations
1. The competent recognition authorities, and the ENIC Network should develop a common understanding on how to use national, European or other overarching qualifications frameworks for the purpose of facilitating the fair recognition of qualifications and should identify the opportunities and challenges they present.
2. Qualifications frameworks should be used to make it easier for competent recognition authorities to assess foreign qualifications.
3. Qualifications frameworks should be used while considering the five key elements in recognition: level, learning outcomes, quality, workload and profile. However, qualifications frameworks provide limited information to support the recognition process when it comes to the profile of a qualification.
4. The following principles should apply to assure the effective use of qualifications frameworks in recognition practice:
a. Level
i. If a National Qualifications Framework has been self-certified or referenced, there is, as a general rule, no need for the competent recognition authority to investigate the level of qualifications further;
ii. In the case that qualifications have been referenced/self-certified towards the same level in overarching frameworks, they should be seen as broadly compatible;
iii. When level discrepancies occur, qualification specific information including the Diploma Supplement or other documents should be used. In these cases, the formal rights the qualification in the awarding country should be taken into account.
b. Learning outcomes
i. The learning outcomes of National Qualifications Frameworks and of overarching qualifications frameworks are generic and provide a reference point for recognition;
ii. In cases where the learning outcomes provided by the qualifications frameworks are insufficient for recognition purposes, the more detailed descriptions of learning outcomes provided by institutions should be used. The description of learning outcomes in the Diploma Supplement or other documents is useful for recognition purposes.
c. Quality
i. A transparent link between recognition, qualifications frameworks and quality assurance should be established;
ii. If a National Qualifications Framework has been self-certified or referenced, there is an assumption that the individual qualifications included in the framework by the competent authority are quality assured. Therefore as a general rule there is no need for the recognition authority to investigate the quality of the qualification.
d. Workload
While recognising that qualifications should as far as possible be assessed on the basis of learning outcomes, competent recognition authorities may also be guided in their assessment by the workload learners are assumed to require in order to obtain the given qualification. This is normally expressed as credits and indicates the typical workload expected to achieve the learning outcomes associated with a qualification.

17 août 2013

Second Meeting of the Reporting on the Bologna Process Implementation WG

http://www.ehea.info/Themes/bologna/images/bologna_logo_footer.jpgThe second meeting of the Reporting WG took place on 02 July 2013 in Luxembourg. The meeting was attended by 21 representatives.
During the meeting, the WG members discussed the indicators found in the 2012 Bologna Process Implementation Report chapter by chapter to assess their relevance to the 2015 reporting exercise. Moreover, the participants considered the new scorecard indicator proposals and those used for the 2012 Report, and provided their recommendations on whether the indicator should be maintained in the 2015 Report and whether any amendments are needed.
Prior to the pre-test of the BFUG questionnaire, the 2012-2015 BFUG structures will have the opportunity to comment on the suggested indicators and propose new ones.
The third meeting of the Reporting WG will be held on 15 November 2013 in Riga, Latvia.

17 août 2013

New subsidiarity text on “The use of Qualifications Framework in the recognition of foreign qualifications”

http://www.ehea.info/Themes/bologna/images/bologna_logo_footer.jpgNew subsidiarity text on “The use of Qualifications Framework in the recognition of foreign qualifications”

During its sixth meeting held in Split on the 19 June, the Lisbon Recognition Convention Committee adopted a new subsidiarity text on “The use of Qualifications Framework in the recognition of foreign qualifications” as well as its Explanatory Memorandum.

The development of national qualifications frameworks provides a new tool for transparency and comparability for the recognition of qualifications. The Recommendation takes notes of this situation and indicates general guidelines for their use.

17 août 2013

Third meeting of the Ad-hoc WG on the Revision of the ECTS Users’ Guide

http://www.ehea.info/Themes/bologna/images/bologna_logo_footer.jpgThird meeting of the Ad-hoc WG on the Revision of the ECTS Users’ Guide was held on 28 May 2013 in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting was chaired by the European Commission and hosted 18 participants.

The main task of the members of the Ad-hoc WG was to discuss the parts of “Mobility” and“Transparency tools” in the ECTS Users’ Guide. The members of the group also updated and made short discussion on the first draft on “Programme design” and on “Teaching, learning and assessment”.  

Next meeting of the ad-hoc WG on the Revision of the ECTS Users’ Guide will be held in autumn 2013.
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